An imaging device is a common tool in peoples' current work and life, such as a printer, a photocopier, a facsimile machine. The imaging device generally includes two parts, an imaging device main body and an ink cartridge; the ink cartridge is a consumable item, which is thus detachably mounted generally in the imaging device main body to be easily replaced. Moreover, in order to allow the imaging device to be used for a long term or be adaptable to requirements for different colors of the ink cartridge, a plurality of ink cartridges may be provided in a current imaging device. Correspondingly, in order to make sure respective ink cartridges are mounted in a correct position of the imaging device main body, an ink cartridge position detection technique is proposed.
In the prior art, ink cartridge position detection, for instance, generally in the manner of light emitting control, is implemented by controlling light emission of a light source in an ink cartridge, specifically, the ink cartridge is provided with a light source, a light receiver is provided in the imaging device main body; the ink cartridge position detection includes two stages, a facing position detection and an adjacent position detection, at the stage of facing position detection, a position of a to-be-detected ink cartridge is arranged on the facing position of the light receiver, and then the light source of the ink cartridge is controlled to emit light, the light receiver receives the light and records the light emission amount; subsequently, at the adjacent position detection stage, an ink cartridge adjacent to the to-be-detected ink cartridge is controlled to emit light, the light receiver receives the light and records the light emission amount. If the light emission amount of the to-be-detected ink cartridge at the facing position is greater than a preset threshold value, and the light emission amount of the to-be-detected ink cartridge is greater than the light emission amount of the adjacent ink cartridge, then the imaging device main body may determine whether the mounting position of the to-be-detected ink cartridge is correct based on this.
However, the above method of the ink cartridge position detection has some defects: during the actual manufacturing process of the cartridge, there will inevitably be some manufacturing errors so the light emission amount of light sources on the respective ink cartridges of the imaging device cannot be equivalent, so in the case that the light emission amount of the adjacent ink cartridge at the adjacent position detection stage is equal to or greater than the light emission amount of the to-be-detected ink cartridge at the facing position detection stage, this will cause an false detection of ink cartridge position detection.